Mercury’s rare transit of the Sun

Mercury, the Solar system’s innermost and smallest planet, will make a rare transit of the Sun on Monday 9thMay 2016, an event which occurs 13 times in a century.

It will resemble a black round dot as it passes in front of the star. The last this event happened was in 2006 when Mercury crossed directly between the Earth and the Sun and it won’t happen again until 2019 and then until 2032 according to NASA.

You won’t need an eclipse glasses, as at barely 3, 000 miles across, Mercury would be too small to spot. Due to the small size of the planet viewing this event safely requires a telescope or high-powered binoculars fitted with solar filters made of specially-coated glass or Mylar.

Images of NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) can be accessed at www.nasa.gov/transit.

Look for Mercury south of the Sun’s equator. The planet might appear as though it’s hardly moving, but in reality, it speeding past the sun at 106,000 mph.

The transit will also be visible from Eastern U.S, Canada, South America, India, UK, Western Europe, Westernmost Africa, North America, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Australia.